Easy Health Tips

While we know that exercise can relieve stress, balancing your diet to improve tension and stress is another facet to achieving overall good health.

When our immune system is out of balance, we are more vulnerable to everyday stresses and tension. However, if our daily diet consists of foods that strengthen the immune system, we are more able to survive the effects of stress and tension we face on a daily basis.

What kind of balanced diet should we engage in? Remember your mom telling you that breakfast is the most important meal of the day? She was right. Without eating a proper breakfast, we tend to stop at a coffee shop and choose a sugary delight. Instead, why not opt for a bowl of oatmeal with a glass of water. Substitute caffeine with chamomile tea, which is a wonderful stress reducer.

If you don’t have time to sit down and have a nourishing breakfast, try a vegetable smoothie. Packed with vitamins and nutrients, this is much better than coffee and toast.

Sugar contributes to stress. You may notice that a while after eating a sugary snack or a bar of chocolate, you feel fatigued. While the sugar may help in the short term, you are just adding wood to the fire in the long run. Conversely, snacking on protein is much healthier for you and helps to maintain blood sugar levels as well. Popcorn is another snack which can get you through the 3 o’clock yearning for something sweet.

Be sure to come back tomorrow for Part 2 and more tips!

With cable news available 24/7, it’s no wonder we are opening our windows and screaming, “I’ve had enough and I can’t take it anymore!” Yes, this may be a bit of an exaggeration but it is important to understand how what you see can play a part in your tension.

On any given day, you can turn on your TV news and the onslaught of information is not only hard to process, but is filled with grim realities. At a time when the nation is at war, the economy is in a state of flux, the stock market is fluctuating, and more and more homes are in foreclosure – it’s no wonder that you may feel tense and uncertain.

Have you ever noticed that during the holidays the news focuses on pleasant and heartwarming stories, good deeds, and acts of kindness? Today, however, we are embroiled in a political election process that has become skewered by the media and offers no relief to the many problems we face globally.

Switch the channel and you may find reality programs that are idiotic at best, and offer no escape from what we experience ourselves. Other programs offer car chases, stories about offenders and their experiences in jail, courtroom dramas, and the like.

It isn’t enough that the real world can put us in a state of angst, but trying to find a show on TV that offers some relief from everyday stresses is another problem altogether. While there are cooking shows, comedy shows, and shows which inform and educate, there is a growing fascination with reality shows that begs the question: Are these shows offering relief or contributing to the tension in our lives?

A person can say, “Change the channel; don’t watch these shows that cause you undue stress,” and that person would be right.

What we see on a daily basis does play a part in our tension. Can we avoid it? Certainly we can avoid TV shows that have no relevance to our lives, but are merely meant to exploit. Do we simply stay home, lock the doors, and never go out again? No, we can’t do that either.

What we can do is use our own meditative skills to relieve the tension. We can’t control the actions of others, but we can control how we feel and respond to certain situations.

There will be situations we can’t avoid, but we can still choose not to let an unpleasant event dictate or determine how we ultimately feel.

Do you need a boost in the morning? How about an afternoon snack to replace that bar of chocolate? Here are three fruit smoothie recipes to boost your energy levels any time of day.

All Fruit Smoothie

1/2 cup bananas
1/2 cup peaches
1/2 cup strawberries
2 cups skim milk
1/4 cup orange juice
2 tablespoons honey

Place all the ingredients into a blender, mix until smooth or somewhat thick, then pour and drink.

Carrot and Apple Smoothie

3 chopped carrots
1 apple cut in quarters
1 cup apple juice

Place all of the ingredients into the blender, mix until smooth or thick consistency, then pour and enjoy!

Blueberry Smoothie

2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
1 cup low-fat yogurt, plain
6 ounces low-fat milk

Place all the ingredients into a blender, mix until smooth or thick consistency, then pour and drink.

All of these smoothie recipes can be modified depending upon your preference of fruits. Studies have shown that blueberries may be helpful in improving mental acuity, and are also an antioxidant. In addition, the vitamins and nutrients derived from these recipes make them healthy and filling.